In this video I give an honest review of each type of sauce I try. I didnt do the blidfolded test because most of the time is done to get the views as "blindfolded" is a keyword to get views. Here I go through the ingredients list on each jar and test them cold to see what they are made of. This type of review helped me in the past to realize that I was using the wrong brand of passata. In my passata sauce video review I realized that Cirio passata (the one I have been using for years wasnt as good as other brands like Mutti, Pomi and Divella) so stopped buying that brand after recording that video. These videos are not made to get views but to actually learn and educate both you and myself.
Rao's was great, but it's been bought out by Campbell's Soup, which makes the worst soups you can find in a grocery, so people are worried about where that brand is going. On an unrelated note, our lemon tree is producing fruit, and I've made your pasta al limone several times in the last week -- loving it. 😊
But blinded testing is important for science. What you see and what you know about the ingredients and the brand influences your taste. This isn’t an opinion, this is science 🤷🏻♂️ Why not make this video AND a blindfolded one? Also, I was wondering if these sauces are made to be eaten with pasta cooked in unsalted water.
I don't care what anybody says. I'm sticking with Mutti. Their Pasta sauce, canned whole and diced tomato product and bottled Passata are lovely, and readily available. Their product is consistent. Also, I only have to walk 300 metres to the shops to get it! Along with a lot of stuff that goes into Vincenzo's recipes.
@@vincenzosplateI use the Mutti ones for years now. But I have stopped using anything pre made. I usually don't even use passata with basil. The only exception I make is for tomato paste with onions, carrots and celery.
@@heni63 Oh regular canned tomatoes and passata are fine. In fact tomatoes are the only vegetable that gets better through canning since the flavor develops better and stronger. What I was talking about were the sauces. There's like none that doesn't have suspicious ingredients and it tastes so much worse than a normal self made sauce.
I used canned sauces in the past, but after your videos I have never done that again. It's amazing how easy it is to make these sauces yourself. You've made me into a convert for traditional Italian fresh sauce. Even more important: all of my family loves it! Thank you for all your efforts!
I have ibs. I can't eat garlic and onion amongst hundreds of other ingredients. But garlic and onion are key to every cuisine. I'm so f'd. 😢 @@vincenzosplate
If only Mutti offered their 'Cherry Tomatoes with Leccino Olives' and 'Rossoro Tomatoes with Grilled Vegetables' pasta sauces in the US. Most likely there isn't as much demand for such sauces in the US.
I am embarrassed to admit that I used to use Dolmio's pasta sauces but watching your videos (and having the time) have allowed me to feel confident making my own pasta sauce. I am making a bolognese sauce for tonight using a recipe from one of your videos. So much nicer than Dolmio's " Low Fat Sauce for Bolognese" I used to use. So thank you.
Fructose is fruit sugar, usually from grapes. Fenugreek is "trigonella", a kind of seed/spice, not really a thickener but it does thicken on its own if you use a large amount and mix it with water and let it soak. But it's really not used in Italian cuisine, is it? It's used more in Asia and the Middle East for curry dishes. Please review next frozen pizzas!
@@charles-y2z6cI thought it's obvious that generally both are bad. But in times were have to choose either one or the other, there can be made cases for both, depending on the circumstances.
A quick way to cleanse your palate and your nose (after smelling lots of things!), is to sniff ground coffee. I have a soft spot for Saclà - I wrote to them once saying I liked a certain advert and they sent me a pile of their products and lots of vouchers! It impressed me a big company took the time to respond to my email. And, yes, organic isn't always best! Looked like you had some nice treats in the background! 🤗
oh wow thank you for the tip Catherine! Yeah Saclà surprised me, it was definitely better than Dolmio, but I for sure prefer Mutti sauce... Have you ever tried it?
Hi Vincenzo. We're Americans who are not familiar with any of those brands except Barilla. We grew up in Connecticut, where there is a large Italian-American population. That's where we learned to appreiciate real pasta sauce. Most commercial pasta sauces here are, sadly, much like your Dolmio's. However, our favorite brand is Victoria Sauce, made in Brooklyn. Their organic marinara sauce is especially magnificent, and is available in large quantities at Costco. Would you ever cover review American pasta sauces? Grazie.
One of corn starch's primary uses is as a thickener for sauces, soups, gravies, and desserts. When mixed with a liquid and heated, corn starch forms a gel-like consistency, which helps to thicken the mixture. It's especially useful for thickening sauces without adding flavor or cloudiness.
I like Mutti, that is until I tried your Pasta Sauce recipe listed on youtube. Your Pasta Sauce recipe is what I use all the time and nothing else. Simple but perfect.
Dear Vincenzo. After doing part of the via de Francesca last year with my girlfriend (continuing this year) I got hooked on Italian food. So glad I found your channel. Have been spreading your recipes around and cooking them often for friends. What I love is that you can cook a delicious dinner within 30 mins, as long as you have fresh and high quality ingredients. This really fits my lifestyle, since im quite busy and after work I usually dont have the energy for long cooking sessions. Another trick I use (probably heresy) is to make your dishes -preferably vegatarian ones- and have a soy protein shake after wards. This way I eat amazing food anddd I get my macros for my workouts. :)))) Thanks again! Ps. Eating your spaghetti with broccoli as I am typing this :)))
I am sooo lucky that we live within a kilometre of an Italian Restaurant, Italian delicatessen, and Italian cafe. All owned by the same guy. And we are in the UK, in a sleepy village area 30 miles outside London. It’s Italian heaven for me! Should should come and visit and rate it Vincenzo!!
Greetings from Germany! Thanks a lot for your work. In my part of Germany I don't have large selection of Italian products, but we have Mutti in almost any supermarket. Canned tomatos ftom Mutti are the ones we use at home.
Many thanks to you for your support, it is much appreciated! Yeah Mutti is almost available worldwide, and I really suggest you to buy and use it, you will love it!
Nice work Vincenzo. Lots of poor quality pasta sauces, it’s good to identify the bad. As a kid growing up in Italy, my neighbor and farmer was Vincenzo. It was remarkable as Americans to be so embraced by our neighbors. I learned so much from helping with their farm. The grape harvest was special. We were teens, but the offer of expresso and vino was part of the deal. It made a lasting and positive impression. I still miss those days.
Ever since i got really into cooking ive been persistent with almost always buying mutti for my sauces, great quality and good price. Never really been disappointed by any of their products.
I stopped using jarred ages ago, mainly because I always wake up in the middle of the night dying of thirst. The idea of having jarred sauce in your cupboard (for a rainy day or if the in-laws show up unexpectedly!) is good, and it's nice to know which brands to watch for. Two things: if it takes too long to read the ingredients, and if you can't pronounce them, you shouldn't buy it. Also, people shouldn't question why one product costs so much as much as they should question why others cost so little, and it's rarely for a good reason. Thanks for another great video!
In fact, the longer the list of ingredients, the more one should leave these products on supermarket shelves. All it takes is a good brand of peeled tomatoes, a little extra virgin olive oil and some fresh basil and one at home in a few minutes makes the best sauce for a plate of spaghetti. That way one knows what one is putting in and what is in it !
America in particular uses all sorts of frakenstein techniques to transform slimey, rotting tomatoes (and other veggies) back into something that *looks* palatable. Even 'fresh' tomatoes at the supermarket are picked while they're green to survive the processing time and how long it takes to get to the consumer. They're turned red by exposure to a gas. You've got the right idea. The price tag is your warning. You get what you pay for, bon apetit.
I've been learning how to make pasta sauce from raw tomatoes, and though it takes some time, the results are really good. It takes about 3-lbs (1.36kg) of plum tomatoes to make the same amount of sauce as a 24-ounce (680G) jar. I simmer the tomatoes, half an onion, chopped up, and a few cloves of garlic for about 15 minutes covered until everything is soft, and I run it through a food mill. To the resulting puree I add an ample drizzle of extra virgin olive oil, and a bay leaf, and return it to heat, simmering it down further. When it's as thick as I want it, I add salt and fresh chopped basil, a pinch of oregano and a splash of red wine. Then that goes into the sauteed vegetables and meat for the completed pasta sauce. From seeing how long it can take to cook down the sauce until it thickens, I can definitely say that adding either tomato paste or starch would speed up the process. I might consider tomato paste if I was in a hurry to get dinner on the table, but using starch... all that does is bind to the water left in the sauce to thicken it. Selling starch thickened sauce means that those companies must be practically selling seasoned tomato juice with thickener. :p
So glad Mutti has become regularly available in my local stores. Tried it for the first time a few years back, and haven't wanted to go to anything else. It's super tasty!
My Irish wife proudly tells her friends that she has never served me sauce out of a jar in our 38 years of marriage. Mind you, I have not nor would I ever consider complaining about anything she put in front of me (even though I do the majority of cooking now that I retired). Still great sauce is easy to make and it freezes perfectly, so we make sauce every two months and freeze it.
@@MatthewSchellenbergIt's my understanding that it's best to use half fresh tomatoes, half good italian passata. Get the best of both worlds of flavor. (I tend to just use the passata since the tomatoes in america's supermarkets are downright awful and there's not always options at farmers market).
Vincezo, I have a request for a video... I have made my own pizza dough on many occasions, sometimes its a success, sometimes not as good as others. Hard to stay consistent when you're not making it that often. I also often buy the pre-made dough balls from the deli counter at the grocery store. Timing is everything and the cravings usually don't always line up with a 48hour ferment. Can you do a video about how to perfect pizza with a storebought dough ball, maybe techniques that can enhance it. One time, I made a pizza with half the ball and forgot the second half in the fridge for 4 days. The 4 day leftover made a better tasting pizza because it had fermented so much! Anyway, I think it might be worth showing ideas with other people that have busy lives... ☺
You want something to review next? Review brands of Mozzarella cheese. Besides everything else you reviewed, that’s something that I see most people buy from the store in bulks.
Ok, after watching this video last week, i decided to change from Annalisa Tomato Puree and adding fresh tomatoes to the Don Antonio as a little treat for my lasange. Just smelling the Don Antonio I could tell the difference, but then I tasted my filling... wow. This was a great experience. Thanks Vincenzo!
@@vincenzosplate I saw that one, it turned out great. I was just wondering if there were tricks to make it preserve longer without freezing it/adding additives.
Ty for your analysis Chef. This will help me. A side note: Although it may not be as traditional, I often add fennel seed (just a couple) to my sauce. Fennel is a very powerful flavor, so I only add maybe 5-6 seeds to an entire pot. Fyi it was recommended to me by a close lifetime Italian friend. He wasn't wrong. But, maybe not traditional. Love your vids sir!
Wow finally I see the Don Antonio brand on this channel! I especially enjoy their Passata. It has great and balanced flavours with a touch of acid from the tomatoes. All other store-bought passatas just seem to ruin any tomato-based pasta sauce I make
A few points that didn't seem clear: 1. Fructose is fruit sugar, one of the natural sugars contained in many fruits, the other being glucose. 2. Modified maize starch is just a fancy term for modified corn starch. 3. The nutritional values describe what is in the product. The sugar may be in the tomatoes to begin with or may be added sugar (which would then have to be in the list of ingredients). Very sweet tomatoes such as cherry tomatoes contain a lot of sugar. For example, La Fiammante Pomodorini contain only cherry tomatoes and tomato juice, nothing else, but there are 5.0 grams of sugar (per 100 grams). This is the natural sugar in the tomatoes.
Thank you, Vincenzo! I found your channel back in 2020 at the beginning of Covid. Im in NY and grew up in an Italian home but was lazy and used to buy only jarred sauce (my nonna would smack me for that bless her soul) but since finding you I haven’t bought a single jarred sauce (only passatas like La Valle/Mutti) and only make my own at home. Love your videos 🙏🏻 Grazie mille
I love Mutti! I would describe their sauce as velvety and flavourful. It doesn't really matter which of their products you use. I've used the diced and whole tomatoes to make my own sauce and it turns out great. I've tried their marinara sauce and it was great...again. They are consistent.
Thank you for this review. I've never heard of any of these sauces so excited to try them out. My own particular brand I go for when I wanna be lazy is Rao's. Listed ingredients from their Roasted Garlic flavor of tomato sauce: Italian Whole Peeled Tomatoes, Italian Cherry Tomatoes, Olive Oil, Roasted Garlic, Carrots, Salt. Nice luxurious taste and not watered down.
In Canada, Multi sauce sells for over $10.00 a jar! I make my sauce fresh..but on occasion I have bought it. A good lesson on choosing sauce!! Read the label! Add some fresh basil... Ohh, love your honesty! 🇨🇦
These types of tests, as I also said on another occasion here, should not be done like this. You have to do them blindfolded, without first knowing the brand name of the product to be a more objective test. Already knowing the name of the brand, you are a little more “conditioned”.
I understand what you are saying and agree in a way but these blindfolded videos are fake most of the time and just made for get views. Here I am analyzing every single jar of sauce going through the ingredients list, nutritional values, consistency and most importantly test. I dont let the name of the brand condition my score decision. In the past I tried cirio passata (the one I always bought and ate) in my test testing video and realized that other brands were a lot better then that so I stopped buying cirio after that taste test. I will probably do blindfolded videos in the future but most of the times is for the sake of seo so getting views. I was 100% honest in this video without the need to be blindfolded
Hey Vincenzo, fructose is different kind of sugar, your table sugar is called sucrose, usually fructose is easier to obtain and keep. If you look at the ingredients on your soda bottles, you'll find high fructose corn syrup in it. I'm pretty sure that fructose is sweeter than normal sugar.
Think about the kind of nasty tomatoes that are going into that jar. They need 'sweeter than sugar' sweetening because they're absolutely funky. And yeah, high fructose corn syrup is an american thing and it's one of the worst substinces you can put into your body.
I am converted to making my own. doesn't take much work really. Just time to cook. But best all, It's real fresh food. Tastes really good. Thanks all to watching Vincenzo's channel:)
Love the video vincenzo love your content your a amazing TH-camr I love watching your videos they are the greatest and the best and the coolest all the pasta sauces look very yummy and tasty
Dolmio was my favourite untill I made your basil pasta sauce, I'm not going back. I used to add pink salt to uplift the taste of Dolmio. You do waste money, buy some Italian tomatoes and make your own ❤😢😊 Thank for choosing the right brand if you don't want to make your own. 😊
Vincenzo I love your channel and content. I have a question regarding the pan you use in most of your pasta videos (Linguine Alle Vongle ). What size is the Scanpan Axis Covered Sauté you use? Is it the 26cm, 30cm or 32cm?
@@MrJackfriday I don't think I'm alone in this but I've never been influenced by the expectations based on the brand. Still, I can see the merit of tasting something blind so I'm not opposed to that.
I agree with several others here in that Mutti is a very good brand to buy and readily available. I normally don't buy prepared sauces from any manufacturer, but for passata or canned peeled tomatoes, Mutti is my "go to". I have a pot of Bolognese on the stove as I type this and the tomato ingredient was from Mutti.
When Im abroad in work I always buying mutti because quality /price balance. When I have more time I stick to frito from onion and garlic and pure passata on extra virgin olive oil. Thank You for that video 😊
I've tried a lot of tomato sauces and yes I've tried Dolmio 😎 but now regularly use the Coles brand 'Mum's Sauce'. Positives are tomatoes 87% Negatives are corn flour and canola oil. I think I'm onto a winner with this one so I'm sticking with it. 😁
My go to sauce is Mezzetta tomato basil or three cheese. Their premium artisan sauce is delicious, but I’m just as satisfied with the first two I’ve mentioned. 💯 ❤
Hi, Vincenzo! I'm a little bit confused by the sequence of your test phases. I would have guessed you would first test the smell, then the taste and THEN look at the ingredients. For a Chef with your experience, it should have been easy to identify low-quality ingredients and then have your sensory analysis corroborated by a look at the list. Otherwise: Thanks for the info and keep up the great work! I'm a huge fan of your recipes and started replicating them as good as possible some weeks ago. (For example, 5 weeks ago, I didn't even know of the existence of Guanciale. Now I can't live without it...)😋
Love your videos. At the very end of this one you say "You don't want sugar," BUT almost all of these you tasted did have sugar, including one that you liked a lot, Don Antonio. Here in the U.S. in my neck of the woods most store-bought pasta sauces are loaded with sugar, especially the cheap brands but even the more expensive ones. One that doesn't have any sugar is Mezzetta, which I recommend.
Hi chef thanks for sharing the video, I dont buy any ready made sauces , i buy pilled tomato in the juice and do the sauce by myself, the sauce can be ready in 20 minutes including the cooking time .... better to avoid all the additives .... No veggie oil or Sugar in a pasta ! And it is cheaper than ready made sauces !
I use mutti mostly along centeno, there both very good,im lucky to have a more then a few speciality shops around for a lot of different cuisines I make my simple tomato sauce with big chuncks of carrots, whole garlic,minced onion, basil,parsley, dry calabrian oregano, littlle salt pepper and i remove the big chunks when done i let it cook down for 2 hours or as long as it needs theres no substitute for time
Fenugreek is a spice produced from the seeds of the plant "Trigonella foenum-graecum". Is the main spice used for the "pastirma" and other sausages. Has typical oriental taste and smell. Very nice when used for tomato sauce for oriental minced meet , like "kebab". But definitely does not fit to the marinara sauce for spaghetti with mirepoix (sofrito) and basil. Can be perfectly combined with cinammon , paprika , cumin, kolander.
Vincenzo, hello from the USA. 100% agree, make your own sauce. It takes very little time and that little effort is well worth it. I use Mutti pelati when I can. Not generally available where we live. My sofrito is shallots and carrots as I find the shallots more delicate. I have taught my sons to avoid jars. I have tasted the Rao's sauce at a local Costco. It is impressive for a jar, but I stick to mine. I have also tried Chef Jean-Pierre 'French chef meets Italian sauce' and it is quite good. Again, I use shallots instead. I can't wait to return to Australia! Cheers
Haven't tried many of these but Rao's is the only one I have tried that I like. I usually make my own sauce though. Generally making a sauce takes as long as making pasta. I only use jarred when I'm extra busy and want to save myself a little time on the clean up. Its good that you skipped over some of the really bad common ones that taste like mostly sugar. Just looked up the Ingredients for Rao's Tomato and Basil Ingredients: Italian Whole Peeled Tomatoes, Olive Oil, Onions, Basil, Salt, Garlic, Black Pepper, Oregano. Yep that is mostly how I make it, minus the oregano(doesn't hurt but seems overused in American Italian recipes), which is probably why I like it. No sugar, no weird stuff, not sure if it tastes like Italy but it certainly tastes like NYC Italian, which I'm thinking might be because of the addition of oregano. Definitely a plus that they don't use "natural flavoring."
I used to make homemade sauce every time, but I have a 5 year old and for the past 5 years, I’ve saved time by using Rao’s arrabbiata at least a few times a week.
I tried Del verde pasta with Mutti sauce and I'm glad I spend a little bit more. Sometime you pay more and don't feel like it's worth it but not this. I'm glad I learned from Vincenzo.
I used to like the Barilla sauce when I first saw it because it was the first Italian sauce in the shops here and it was better than the other (usually American) ones. I now make my own tomato sauce and use the few Barilla jars I have left instead of sugar whenever the recipe asks to add sugar to a tomato-based recipe.
In the USA, RAO's Marinara wins most of the supermarket sauce taste tests. The ingredients are "Italian whole peeled tomatoes, Olive Oil, Carrots, Salt, Celery, Basil". I don't know about the rest of the USA, but here I can get Mutti tomatoes, but not their sauces.
Its so easy to make better sauce than any jarred sauce, keep a jar if you must but make your own. I never use sugar, i grind carrot and use that I think it works
I am not familiar with any of the sauces you reviewed except for Barilla. In the US I use Rao’s marinara or Victoria. Would love for you to review the sauces here in the US. Thank you for your honest opinions.
Unfortunately I'm not familiar with most of those brands, as I live in the US. I will use one particular brand of "jarred" sauce if I'm really in a pinch for time. But, recently they have changed the recipe , and I dont care for it anymore. Otherwise, what I find here, too much herbs, spices, seasonings to cover up chemicals and inferior ingredients. Bravo to you! Even though 90% of the time I make my own, I still learned something from watching BTW, fenugreek is an Indian herb, leaves and seeds with a light sweet maple syrup taste and aroma! Buon appetito !
Some of those non traditional ingredients (sugar, starch, olive or even vegetable oil etc) are simply to cut corners to make the product cheaper and quicker to manufacture for more profit
What an absolute treasure trove of valuable food information this channel is, honestly Vincenzo thank you very much, especially for this video in particular, you have more than likely saved me hundreds of shekels at my local supermarket Grazie Mille Vincenzo
Ciao Amico mio thank you so much. You just made my day. I try my best to share the most helpful content so you can eat better Italian food and food in general. Pasta sauces are some of thr most popular products and unfortunately the bad ones (slightly cheaper) are the ones majority of people pick
Hello Vincenzo! I know you're all about original italian recipes and i love and respect that but an italian friend of mine made me a tuna carbonara and it was delicious. What do you think about that? I also absolutely love the original carbonara that you promote so much
I like Rustichella d’Abruzzo sauce. For a quick plate of pasta it’s very nice. By the way, my Sicilian grandmother always put a pinch of sugar in her sauce. Yes, most likely a much smaller amount than most commercial sauces. But it was part of her homemade sauce. It’s her recipe that I use to make homemade sauce when I have the time
I'm from southeast Asia region, and I used to use Preggo brand. I will try if I can find Mutti. Thanks Vincenzo! (Like Chef James said and you mentioned in this video as well, Italy take sauce in serious manner)
Hello Vincenzo a big fan of your channel from India. The Fenugreek seed is actually a major spice used in Indian cuisine with very subtle aroma and dried Fenugreek leaves are also adds great flavour in the curry but don't know why Dolmio puts it in their pasta sauce. It is actually great if you're making Indian curry and put the dried Fenugreek leaves at the end but every cuisine has their own authentic ingredients, you can't just put garam masala in the Ragù.
Thankyou Vincenzo , looking forward to more videos, found your channel today watching Eva and Harper on Pasta Grammar really appreciate this information wonderful. Could you recommend some places here in Australia to find some good kitchen hardware, Italian food products please. So glad I found your channel.
Vincenzo, here where I live the only sauce you show that I’m able to get here is Barilla. So I’d have to order online. I just do my best to avoid a high sugar sauce. That means avoiding Prego and Ragu. I buy Barilla, Classico, Newmans Own is good. Raos is here but very expensive.
Barilla is a good brand too. I sometimes use them whenever I’m craving for a quick pasta dish and that’s what’s available in the pantry. If you could find Mutti, that’s a great option too.
I hadn’t seen this before but the guy is right on the money as it were. Good to see someone explaining why you should pay a bit more not for the marketing but quality ingredients.
Great, informative, video! I don't recognize some of the other brands you showed but this justifies why Mutti is a bit more expensive than some of the other commercial brands on the shelf in my area. I personally don't buy ready-made sauce because I make my own but I buy Mutti passata. We have a lot of artisinal products here in Montreal but they're more expensive and at that point it's just better to make your own sauce, and cheaper.
Here in the States the pre-made jars of sauces are so expensive (apart from the truly inedible ones) that it really is a no brainer. A can of San Marzano tomatoes, (uncrushed plum), partially blended and then cooked down a bit with the soffrito and basil. So simple, yet so delicious. Works great as a pizza sauce too.
Here in the US, there is an obsessive and unhealthy practice to add excessive quantities of sugar to processed food by the food industry. The tomatoes sauces sold in the stores is the perfect example. At least RAO’s is a decent brand here.
I've recently seen Mutti Chopped / Cherry / Crushed tomato cans being stocked at my local supermarket. The pasta sauces we get here in Sweden are disgustingly sweet and ketchup-y imo. So spending 45 minutes with a can of the Mutti and fresh basil has made me appreciate pasta dishes much more.
Tomato sauce doesn't have to take all day. If I'm in a hurry, I squash up a can of whole tomatoes, pour it over a little warmed extra virgin olive oil and season with basil, salt and maybe a pinch of crushed pepper. Sometimes, I start with some onion, but usually it's a quick summer dish that doesn't heat up the kitchen so I keep it simple.
Vincenzo, fructose is a monosaccharide sugar (a simple sugar). Next, fenugreek is used a lot in Indian cooking. My thought on that, why?!? It has a distinct flavor, but doesn't belong in Italian pasta sauce. NOPE! Last thought, what do you have behind you on the stove top? That looks yummy! Great video!
Mutti definitely is usable. Have to say that I use some other also but can't remember the name. It's also on the runny side but I like to reduce it and add a little garlic, basil and some other ingredients sometimes.
I use to use only cherry tomatos, then I look for a good quality jar tomato sauce, I seen Mutti said solo pomodoro and had an intense Italian feeling now have never looked back :) i can drink it its so yummy :)
Not sure if you can get it in Australia, but if you can, Rao's is an absolute go to and is one of the highest rated jarred sauces in the US, and rightfully so. I am a huge fan of Mutti as well, but like a proper home cook, i much prefer to make my own
Intetesting. Where I live, Dolmio looks not like this, but is also among the better ones. Since I began to cook based on your videos, when I need a sauce, I get food quality passata and just put basil, etc from my garden in that. Better (and cheaper) than anything so far.
I found Michael Angelo and Lucini pasta sauces and wedges of Romano cheese in an online grocery app! I'm not sure if you recognize the names of those pasta sauces but they have very few ingredients and no sugar or dry spices. When it's time for me to order groceries I plan to get both of those pasta sauces and the cheese I can grate my own 😃
Vincenzo, I really enjoy your reviews and recipes. To point something out, Fenugreek is an herb used in Indian cuisine. It is not a thickener but certainly does not belong in tomato sauce.
I work in a food warehouse for a big retailer in the UK and I have to say when we make the pallets with the orders sent by the store, there is not much demand for dolmio actually funny enough the store brand is in more demand and of course barilla pasta and sauce it's in high demand.
Vincenzo, thanks for the reviews. Very helpful. I have a question. I am Sicilian and most of my relatives use sugar in the sauce to counteract tomato acid (I guess). Is that a habit caused by not having the sweeter Marzano tomatoes available for many years? Of course, I usually make my own sauces but have to confess to you that I sometimes use sugar. I'll try my next sauce without. Just wanted your general opinion on the subject.
Im new to cooking italian food. Could you please tell me the difference between pasta sauce and pesto? Does the pesto add more flavour? Ive found red and green pesto. Thank you 😊
From the American midwest here and have tried Raos sauce. It is ok but I would recommend trying Victoria marinara pasta sauce if you can find it. It is available at Walmarts here and it is quite natural and pretty decent. I almost always make my own sauce but I would buy Victoria if I needed it quick.
Hi Vicenzo, hope you're well mate. Thank you for this. I think it's important to know which sauces are good/no good and it also further emphasis the importance for all of us to try and make our own tomato sauce. One thing I wanted to ask you: would you ever consider going into the Italian sauce industry and selling your own tomato sauce at shops/supermarkets? I think you'd do really well because you use fresh ingredients and you keep things simple and it's tasty too. Something for you to perhaps consider. 😊👍
Mutti is the top! they have also canned peeled Tomato's and the one I use is a game changer, called: Pomodoro San Marzano Del'Agro Sarnese-Nocerino D.O.P. . These are peeled San Marzano tomato's and the taste is heaven! for the rest I cook it to pulp adding garlic and basil. If you taste it once, you don't use anything else!
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In this video I give an honest review of each type of sauce I try. I didnt do the blidfolded test because most of the time is done to get the views as "blindfolded" is a keyword to get views. Here I go through the ingredients list on each jar and test them cold to see what they are made of. This type of review helped me in the past to realize that I was using the wrong brand of passata. In my passata sauce video review I realized that Cirio passata (the one I have been using for years wasnt as good as other brands like Mutti, Pomi and Divella) so stopped buying that brand after recording that video. These videos are not made to get views but to actually learn and educate both you and myself.
Rao's was great, but it's been bought out by Campbell's Soup, which makes the worst soups you can find in a grocery, so people are worried about where that brand is going.
On an unrelated note, our lemon tree is producing fruit, and I've made your pasta al limone several times in the last week -- loving it. 😊
Of course you want views.
But blinded testing is important for science. What you see and what you know about the ingredients and the brand influences your taste. This isn’t an opinion, this is science 🤷🏻♂️
Why not make this video AND a blindfolded one?
Also, I was wondering if these sauces are made to be eaten with pasta cooked in unsalted water.
Could you do a review on jars of pesto, please.
@@PhysioDetective This! 👆
I don't care what anybody says. I'm sticking with Mutti. Their Pasta sauce, canned whole and diced tomato product and bottled Passata are lovely, and readily available. Their product is consistent. Also, I only have to walk 300 metres to the shops to get it! Along with a lot of stuff that goes into Vincenzo's recipes.
As I said in this video, Mutti is definitely the best one! So well done, keep using Mutti sauces, and you'll never go wrong!
@@vincenzosplateI use the Mutti ones for years now. But I have stopped using anything pre made. I usually don't even use passata with basil. The only exception I make is for tomato paste with onions, carrots and celery.
@@jonasklose6472but at least in non tomato seasons this is probably the best you can use.
@@vincenzosplatedo you know Petti peeled tomatoes? It’s the best brand at my local supermarket.
@@heni63 Oh regular canned tomatoes and passata are fine. In fact tomatoes are the only vegetable that gets better through canning since the flavor develops better and stronger.
What I was talking about were the sauces. There's like none that doesn't have suspicious ingredients and it tastes so much worse than a normal self made sauce.
I used canned sauces in the past, but after your videos I have never done that again. It's amazing how easy it is to make these sauces yourself. You've made me into a convert for traditional Italian fresh sauce. Even more important: all of my family loves it! Thank you for all your efforts!
So happy to hear you're into homemade sauce now. It's pretty easy, right? And it's awesome that your family loves it too! Thanks for the shoutout!
I have ibs. I can't eat garlic and onion amongst hundreds of other ingredients. But garlic and onion are key to every cuisine. I'm so f'd. 😢 @@vincenzosplate
I’m glad Mutti has a good reputation. One of the few brands i can find locally.
Of course mutti is a good brand, in Italy it is also popular and most of Italians who do not make homemade passata buy Mutti!
Better than Rao’s.
@@sO_RoNerYAnd Rao's is like twice as much as any other sauce. I'd rather buy Mutti pasata than spend $9 on Rao's
Don Antonio is sold on Amazon.
If only Mutti offered their 'Cherry Tomatoes with Leccino Olives' and 'Rossoro Tomatoes with Grilled Vegetables' pasta sauces in the US. Most likely there isn't as much demand for such sauces in the US.
I am embarrassed to admit that I used to use Dolmio's pasta sauces but watching your videos (and having the time) have allowed me to feel confident making my own pasta sauce. I am making a bolognese sauce for tonight using a recipe from one of your videos. So much nicer than Dolmio's " Low Fat Sauce for Bolognese" I used to use. So thank you.
You're welcome my friend! It's my pleasure to share with you guys what I know about Italian cuisine! 😊👨🍳🇮🇹
I bought Dolmio when I was incredibly broke and I was more worried about not starving than quality 😢
"Low fat sauce for bolognese"? Where's the fat coming from? What?
Fructose is fruit sugar, usually from grapes. Fenugreek is "trigonella", a kind of seed/spice, not really a thickener but it does thicken on its own if you use a large amount and mix it with water and let it soak. But it's really not used in Italian cuisine, is it? It's used more in Asia and the Middle East for curry dishes.
Please review next frozen pizzas!
@@avro9707but better for blood sugar levels.
@@noamtoneither is best. It's sauce not candy
@@charles-y2z6cwhere did I say best?
@@noamto sorry didn't mean it that way
@@charles-y2z6cI thought it's obvious that generally both are bad. But in times were have to choose either one or the other, there can be made cases for both, depending on the circumstances.
A quick way to cleanse your palate and your nose (after smelling lots of things!), is to sniff ground coffee. I have a soft spot for Saclà - I wrote to them once saying I liked a certain advert and they sent me a pile of their products and lots of vouchers! It impressed me a big company took the time to respond to my email. And, yes, organic isn't always best! Looked like you had some nice treats in the background! 🤗
oh wow thank you for the tip Catherine!
Yeah Saclà surprised me, it was definitely better than Dolmio, but I for sure prefer Mutti sauce... Have you ever tried it?
@@vincenzosplate I can’t find it near me, but would love to try it. The trials of living in rural areas! 🤣
Yes a lot of perfume shops use this
@@mitaskeledzija6269 that’s where I learned it! 🤗
Drinking a cup of black tea or water helps too
Hi Vincenzo. We're Americans who are not familiar with any of those brands except Barilla. We grew up in Connecticut, where there is a large Italian-American population. That's where we learned to appreiciate real pasta sauce. Most commercial pasta sauces here are, sadly, much like your Dolmio's. However, our favorite brand is Victoria Sauce, made in Brooklyn. Their organic marinara sauce is especially magnificent, and is available in large quantities at Costco. Would you ever cover review American pasta sauces? Grazie.
Yeah Ragu is basically just like Dolmio I think. Bad
One of corn starch's primary uses is as a thickener for sauces, soups, gravies, and desserts. When mixed with a liquid and heated, corn starch forms a gel-like consistency, which helps to thicken the mixture. It's especially useful for thickening sauces without adding flavor or cloudiness.
I like Mutti, that is until I tried your Pasta Sauce recipe listed on youtube. Your Pasta Sauce recipe is what I use all the time and nothing else. Simple but perfect.
Homemade is always the best my friend! Flavourful and healthy! 😊🍅
I still will use Mutti pureed tomato
Dear Vincenzo. After doing part of the via de Francesca last year with my girlfriend (continuing this year) I got hooked on Italian food. So glad I found your channel. Have been spreading your recipes around and cooking them often for friends. What I love is that you can cook a delicious dinner within 30 mins, as long as you have fresh and high quality ingredients. This really fits my lifestyle, since im quite busy and after work I usually dont have the energy for long cooking sessions. Another trick I use (probably heresy) is to make your dishes -preferably vegatarian ones- and have a soy protein shake after wards. This way I eat amazing food anddd I get my macros for my workouts. :)))) Thanks again!
Ps. Eating your spaghetti with broccoli as I am typing this :)))
I am sooo lucky that we live within a kilometre of an Italian Restaurant, Italian delicatessen, and Italian cafe. All owned by the same guy. And we are in the UK, in a sleepy village area 30 miles outside London. It’s Italian heaven for me! Should should come and visit and rate it Vincenzo!!
Greetings from Germany! Thanks a lot for your work. In my part of Germany I don't have large selection of Italian products, but we have Mutti in almost any supermarket. Canned tomatos ftom Mutti are the ones we use at home.
Many thanks to you for your support, it is much appreciated!
Yeah Mutti is almost available worldwide, and I really suggest you to buy and use it, you will love it!
You are welcome! I hope you make the most out of Mutti sauces! They are some of the best commercial brands out there! 🍅👨🍳
Nice work Vincenzo. Lots of poor quality pasta sauces, it’s good to identify the bad. As a kid growing up in Italy, my neighbor and farmer was Vincenzo. It was remarkable as Americans to be so embraced by our neighbors. I learned so much from helping with their farm. The grape harvest was special. We were teens, but the offer of expresso and vino was part of the deal. It made a lasting and positive impression. I still miss those days.
Espresso
I prefer making from scratch, but sometimes… great advice Vincenzo, thanks!
Ever since i got really into cooking ive been persistent with almost always buying mutti for my sauces, great quality and good price. Never really been disappointed by any of their products.
I stopped using jarred ages ago, mainly because I always wake up in the middle of the night dying of thirst. The idea of having jarred sauce in your cupboard (for a rainy day or if the in-laws show up unexpectedly!) is good, and it's nice to know which brands to watch for. Two things: if it takes too long to read the ingredients, and if you can't pronounce them, you shouldn't buy it. Also, people shouldn't question why one product costs so much as much as they should question why others cost so little, and it's rarely for a good reason.
Thanks for another great video!
In fact, the longer the list of ingredients, the more one should leave these products on supermarket shelves. All it takes is a good brand of peeled tomatoes, a little extra virgin olive oil and some fresh basil and one at home in a few minutes makes the best sauce for a plate of spaghetti. That way one knows what one is putting in and what is in it !
America in particular uses all sorts of frakenstein techniques to transform slimey, rotting tomatoes (and other veggies) back into something that *looks* palatable. Even 'fresh' tomatoes at the supermarket are picked while they're green to survive the processing time and how long it takes to get to the consumer. They're turned red by exposure to a gas. You've got the right idea. The price tag is your warning. You get what you pay for, bon apetit.
I've been learning how to make pasta sauce from raw tomatoes, and though it takes some time, the results are really good. It takes about 3-lbs (1.36kg) of plum tomatoes to make the same amount of sauce as a 24-ounce (680G) jar. I simmer the tomatoes, half an onion, chopped up, and a few cloves of garlic for about 15 minutes covered until everything is soft, and I run it through a food mill. To the resulting puree I add an ample drizzle of extra virgin olive oil, and a bay leaf, and return it to heat, simmering it down further. When it's as thick as I want it, I add salt and fresh chopped basil, a pinch of oregano and a splash of red wine. Then that goes into the sauteed vegetables and meat for the completed pasta sauce. From seeing how long it can take to cook down the sauce until it thickens, I can definitely say that adding either tomato paste or starch would speed up the process. I might consider tomato paste if I was in a hurry to get dinner on the table, but using starch... all that does is bind to the water left in the sauce to thicken it. Selling starch thickened sauce means that those companies must be practically selling seasoned tomato juice with thickener. :p
I love the Mutti ❤️ easy to find and very good when you’re out of time ! 😊
Mutti is always a guarantee! Probably the best one with Don Antonio
So glad Mutti has become regularly available in my local stores. Tried it for the first time a few years back, and haven't wanted to go to anything else. It's super tasty!
My Irish wife proudly tells her friends that she has never served me sauce out of a jar in our 38 years of marriage. Mind you, I have not nor would I ever consider complaining about anything she put in front of me (even though I do the majority of cooking now that I retired). Still great sauce is easy to make and it freezes perfectly, so we make sauce every two months and freeze it.
Sound like a great marriage!
Wise man
Why freeze it? Put it hot into the oven sterilised Passata jars. Then pour from the jar when you need it.
It's actually not hard to make a sauce out of fresh ripe tomatoes. Although I do admit I add tomato paste to thicken it.
@@MatthewSchellenbergIt's my understanding that it's best to use half fresh tomatoes, half good italian passata. Get the best of both worlds of flavor. (I tend to just use the passata since the tomatoes in america's supermarkets are downright awful and there's not always options at farmers market).
Vincezo, I have a request for a video... I have made my own pizza dough on many occasions, sometimes its a success, sometimes not as good as others. Hard to stay consistent when you're not making it that often. I also often buy the pre-made dough balls from the deli counter at the grocery store. Timing is everything and the cravings usually don't always line up with a 48hour ferment. Can you do a video about how to perfect pizza with a storebought dough ball, maybe techniques that can enhance it. One time, I made a pizza with half the ball and forgot the second half in the fridge for 4 days. The 4 day leftover made a better tasting pizza because it had fermented so much! Anyway, I think it might be worth showing ideas with other people that have busy lives... ☺
You want something to review next? Review brands of Mozzarella cheese. Besides everything else you reviewed, that’s something that I see most people buy from the store in bulks.
This is a super interesting suggestion, thank you SO much!
I'm glad you're enjoying these rating videos!
I would love to see a test of that as well 👌🏼
Ok, after watching this video last week, i decided to change from Annalisa Tomato Puree and adding fresh tomatoes to the Don Antonio as a little treat for my lasange. Just smelling the Don Antonio I could tell the difference, but then I tasted my filling... wow. This was a great experience. Thanks Vincenzo!
I loved the format. Maybe a nice follow up would be on how to cook a longer lasting sauce + bottling it?
Ciao my friend! I already have a video recipe on how to make homemade passata sauce! You can find it on my channel 🙏🏻
@@vincenzosplate I saw that one, it turned out great. I was just wondering if there were tricks to make it preserve longer without freezing it/adding additives.
Ty for your analysis Chef. This will help me.
A side note:
Although it may not be as traditional, I often add fennel seed (just a couple) to my sauce. Fennel is a very powerful flavor, so I only add maybe 5-6 seeds to an entire pot. Fyi it was recommended to me by a close lifetime Italian friend. He wasn't wrong. But, maybe not traditional.
Love your vids sir!
Wow finally I see the Don Antonio brand on this channel! I especially enjoy their Passata. It has great and balanced flavours with a touch of acid from the tomatoes. All other store-bought passatas just seem to ruin any tomato-based pasta sauce I make
Hey! Yes it was the best one I tried. Definitely a pasta sauce I suggest to buy!
A few points that didn't seem clear:
1. Fructose is fruit sugar, one of the natural sugars contained in many fruits, the other being glucose.
2. Modified maize starch is just a fancy term for modified corn starch.
3. The nutritional values describe what is in the product. The sugar may be in the tomatoes to begin with or may be added sugar (which would then have to be in the list of ingredients). Very sweet tomatoes such as cherry tomatoes contain a lot of sugar. For example, La Fiammante Pomodorini contain only cherry tomatoes and tomato juice, nothing else, but there are 5.0 grams of sugar (per 100 grams). This is the natural sugar in the tomatoes.
Thank you, Vincenzo! I found your channel back in 2020 at the beginning of Covid. Im in NY and grew up in an Italian home but was lazy and used to buy only jarred sauce (my nonna would smack me for that bless her soul) but since finding you I haven’t bought a single jarred sauce (only passatas like La Valle/Mutti) and only make my own at home. Love your videos 🙏🏻 Grazie mille
I love Mutti! I would describe their sauce as velvety and flavourful. It doesn't really matter which of their products you use. I've used the diced and whole tomatoes to make my own sauce and it turns out great. I've tried their marinara sauce and it was great...again. They are consistent.
Thank you for this review. I've never heard of any of these sauces so excited to try them out. My own particular brand I go for when I wanna be lazy is Rao's. Listed ingredients from their Roasted Garlic flavor of tomato sauce: Italian Whole Peeled Tomatoes, Italian Cherry Tomatoes, Olive Oil, Roasted Garlic, Carrots, Salt. Nice luxurious taste and not watered down.
That's my choice as well.
It's delicious. Always have like 4 of the Costco jars in the pantry. Honestly don't even think it's worth the effort to make my own anymore.
In Canada, Multi sauce sells for over $10.00 a jar! I make my sauce fresh..but on occasion I have bought it.
A good lesson on choosing sauce!! Read the label! Add some fresh basil...
Ohh, love your honesty! 🇨🇦
I love that you have % of ingredients over there! That’s awesome and you really know what you’re getting.
These types of tests, as I also said on another occasion here, should not be done like this. You have to do them blindfolded, without first knowing the brand name of the product to be a more objective test. Already knowing the name of the brand, you are a little more “conditioned”.
I understand what you are saying and agree in a way but these blindfolded videos are fake most of the time and just made for get views. Here I am analyzing every single jar of sauce going through the ingredients list, nutritional values, consistency and most importantly test. I dont let the name of the brand condition my score decision.
In the past I tried cirio passata (the one I always bought and ate) in my test testing video and realized that other brands were a lot better then that so I stopped buying cirio after that taste test. I will probably do blindfolded videos in the future but most of the times is for the sake of seo so getting views. I was 100% honest in this video without the need to be blindfolded
I use to buy Prego Traditional for many years then began buying Rao's. Very informative will check out the ones you recommended.
Hey Vincenzo, fructose is different kind of sugar, your table sugar is called sucrose, usually fructose is easier to obtain and keep. If you look at the ingredients on your soda bottles, you'll find high fructose corn syrup in it.
I'm pretty sure that fructose is sweeter than normal sugar.
Thank you a lot for the explanation 🙏🏻 appreciated
Fructose is much sweeter than sucrose and fructose is a danger for the liver.
We don’t use corn syrup in Australia. That’s an American thing.
Think about the kind of nasty tomatoes that are going into that jar. They need 'sweeter than sugar' sweetening because they're absolutely funky. And yeah, high fructose corn syrup is an american thing and it's one of the worst substinces you can put into your body.
Fructose is, as glucose, a componente of sucrose.
I am converted to making my own. doesn't take much work really. Just time to cook. But best all, It's real fresh food. Tastes really good. Thanks all to watching Vincenzo's channel:)
Love the video vincenzo love your content your a amazing TH-camr I love watching your videos they are the greatest and the best and the coolest all the pasta sauces look very yummy and tasty
Ciao Alex, thank you a lot, I’m happy to hear you enjoyed the video!
Which pasta sauce you usually choose?
@@vincenzosplate I usely use one that is fresh
Dolmio was my favourite untill I made your basil pasta sauce, I'm not going back. I used to add pink salt to uplift the taste of Dolmio. You do waste money, buy some Italian tomatoes and make your own ❤😢😊
Thank for choosing the right brand if you don't want to make your own. 😊
Love the video
Vincenzo I love your channel and content. I have a question regarding the pan you use in most of your pasta videos (Linguine Alle Vongle ).
What size is the Scanpan Axis Covered Sauté you use?
Is it the 26cm, 30cm or 32cm?
I’m a firm believer that all taste tests should be done blind.
Yeah, especially italians are so biased when it comes to something like this.
Honest question: why? Is it because in this way the brand or the appearance can't "trick" us?
@@reporterid because of the expectations that comes with it.
@@MrJackfriday I don't think I'm alone in this but I've never been influenced by the expectations based on the brand. Still, I can see the merit of tasting something blind so I'm not opposed to that.
I agree with several others here in that Mutti is a very good brand to buy and readily available. I normally don't buy prepared sauces from any manufacturer, but for passata or canned peeled tomatoes, Mutti is my "go to". I have a pot of Bolognese on the stove as I type this and the tomato ingredient was from Mutti.
I make my own but in a pinch, Victorias
Making your own tomatoe sauce is the best choice! 😊
When Im abroad in work I always buying mutti because quality /price balance.
When I have more time I stick to frito from onion and garlic and pure passata on extra virgin olive oil.
Thank You for that video 😊
Fructose is another form of sugar
Thank you for letting me know!
Yes, but it doesn't need insulin to go into the cell unlike the glucose from the sucrose molecule of sugar.
The canned Mutti Polpa is the best in my opinion for anything requiring tomato. Super fresh tasting. Excellent product.
I've tried a lot of tomato sauces and yes I've tried Dolmio 😎 but now regularly use the Coles brand 'Mum's Sauce'. Positives are tomatoes 87% Negatives are corn flour and canola oil. I think I'm onto a winner with this one so I'm sticking with it. 😁
fist one I have done - checked my sauces about indigridients... and I am happy, that I made good choices . Wonderful Video - thank you so much
fantastic my friend! I'm really curious to know which brand you have in your pantry!
My go to sauce is Mezzetta tomato basil or three cheese.
Their premium artisan sauce is delicious, but I’m just as satisfied with the first two I’ve mentioned. 💯 ❤
Hi, Vincenzo! I'm a little bit confused by the sequence of your test phases. I would have guessed you would first test the smell, then the taste and THEN look at the ingredients. For a Chef with your experience, it should have been easy to identify low-quality ingredients and then have your sensory analysis corroborated by a look at the list. Otherwise: Thanks for the info and keep up the great work! I'm a huge fan of your recipes and started replicating them as good as possible some weeks ago. (For example, 5 weeks ago, I didn't even know of the existence of Guanciale. Now I can't live without it...)😋
Love your videos. At the very end of this one you say "You don't want sugar," BUT almost all of these you tasted did have sugar, including one that you liked a lot, Don Antonio. Here in the U.S. in my neck of the woods most store-bought pasta sauces are loaded with sugar, especially the cheap brands but even the more expensive ones. One that doesn't have any sugar is Mezzetta, which I recommend.
Hi chef thanks for sharing the video, I dont buy any ready made sauces , i buy pilled tomato in the juice and do the sauce by myself, the sauce can be ready in 20 minutes including the cooking time .... better to avoid all the additives .... No veggie oil or Sugar in a pasta ! And it is cheaper than ready made sauces !
I use mutti mostly along centeno, there both very good,im lucky to have a more then a few speciality shops around for a lot of different cuisines
I make my simple tomato sauce with big chuncks of carrots, whole garlic,minced onion, basil,parsley, dry calabrian oregano, littlle salt pepper and i remove the big chunks when done i let it cook down for 2 hours or as long as it needs theres no substitute for time
Fenugreek is a spice produced from the seeds of the plant "Trigonella foenum-graecum". Is the main spice used for the "pastirma" and other sausages. Has typical oriental taste and smell. Very nice when used for tomato sauce for oriental minced meet , like "kebab". But definitely does not fit to the marinara sauce for spaghetti with mirepoix (sofrito) and basil. Can be perfectly combined with cinammon , paprika , cumin, kolander.
Exactly - and of course Vincenzo deleted my comment when I said something similar...
Vincenzo, hello from the USA. 100% agree, make your own sauce. It takes very little time and that little effort is well worth it. I use Mutti pelati when I can. Not generally available where we live. My sofrito is shallots and carrots as I find the shallots more delicate. I have taught my sons to avoid jars. I have tasted the Rao's sauce at a local Costco. It is impressive for a jar, but I stick to mine. I have also tried Chef Jean-Pierre 'French chef meets Italian sauce' and it is quite good. Again, I use shallots instead. I can't wait to return to Australia! Cheers
Thank you for this great review , I love Mutti sauce which is the only one available in Cyprus, I usually mix it with fresh Mediterranean tomatoes
Haven't tried many of these but Rao's is the only one I have tried that I like. I usually make my own sauce though. Generally making a sauce takes as long as making pasta. I only use jarred when I'm extra busy and want to save myself a little time on the clean up. Its good that you skipped over some of the really bad common ones that taste like mostly sugar.
Just looked up the Ingredients for Rao's Tomato and Basil
Ingredients: Italian Whole Peeled Tomatoes, Olive Oil, Onions, Basil, Salt, Garlic, Black Pepper, Oregano.
Yep that is mostly how I make it, minus the oregano(doesn't hurt but seems overused in American Italian recipes), which is probably why I like it. No sugar, no weird stuff, not sure if it tastes like Italy but it certainly tastes like NYC Italian, which I'm thinking might be because of the addition of oregano. Definitely a plus that they don't use "natural flavoring."
They should use Extra Virgin Olive Oil though.
I haven't purchased pre-made pasta sauce since I discovered your channel!!!
I used to make homemade sauce every time, but I have a 5 year old and for the past 5 years, I’ve saved time by using Rao’s arrabbiata at least a few times a week.
I remember years ago I tried Raos and thought OMG I can taste the tomatoes! So good! I will try Mutti but Raos is hard to beat for jar sauces.
I tried Del verde pasta with Mutti sauce and I'm glad I spend a little bit more. Sometime you pay more and don't feel like it's worth it but not this. I'm glad I learned from Vincenzo.
I used to like the Barilla sauce when I first saw it because it was the first Italian sauce in the shops here and it was better than the other (usually American) ones. I now make my own tomato sauce and use the few Barilla jars I have left instead of sugar whenever the recipe asks to add sugar to a tomato-based recipe.
I'm convinced that Barilla used to be better 10-15 years ago. But maybe I was like Vincenzo and using it before my palate 'grew up'
I still think the Barilla sauce is fine. It’s not the best on the market but infinitely better than Dolmio, Leggos or anything similar. 👍
In the USA, RAO's Marinara wins most of the supermarket sauce taste tests. The ingredients are "Italian whole peeled tomatoes, Olive Oil, Carrots, Salt, Celery, Basil". I don't know about the rest of the USA, but here I can get Mutti tomatoes, but not their sauces.
for the Sacla - fructose is sugar (usually from fruit), and the maize starch is corn starch (the maize/corn thing i'm not even try to get into that).
Its so easy to make better sauce than any jarred sauce, keep a jar if you must but make your own. I never use sugar, i grind carrot and use that I think it works
I am not familiar with any of the sauces you reviewed except for Barilla. In the US I use Rao’s marinara or Victoria. Would love for you to review the sauces here in the US. Thank you for your honest opinions.
Unfortunately I'm not familiar with most of those brands, as I live in the US.
I will use one particular brand of "jarred" sauce if I'm really in a pinch for time. But, recently they have changed the recipe , and I dont care for it anymore. Otherwise, what I find here, too much herbs, spices, seasonings to cover up chemicals and inferior ingredients.
Bravo to you! Even though 90% of the time I make my own, I still learned something from watching
BTW, fenugreek is an Indian herb, leaves and seeds with a light sweet maple syrup taste and aroma!
Buon appetito !
Some of those non traditional ingredients (sugar, starch, olive or even vegetable oil etc) are simply to cut corners to make the product cheaper and quicker to manufacture for more profit
What an absolute treasure trove of valuable food information this channel is, honestly Vincenzo thank you very much, especially for this video in particular, you have more than likely saved me hundreds of shekels at my local supermarket
Grazie Mille Vincenzo
Ciao Amico mio thank you so much. You just made my day. I try my best to share the most helpful content so you can eat better Italian food and food in general. Pasta sauces are some of thr most popular products and unfortunately the bad ones (slightly cheaper) are the ones majority of people pick
Hello Vincenzo! I know you're all about original italian recipes and i love and respect that but an italian friend of mine made me a tuna carbonara and it was delicious. What do you think about that? I also absolutely love the original carbonara that you promote so much
I like Rustichella d’Abruzzo sauce. For a quick plate of pasta it’s very nice. By the way, my Sicilian grandmother always put a pinch of sugar in her sauce. Yes, most likely a much smaller amount than most commercial sauces. But it was part of her homemade sauce. It’s her recipe that I use to make homemade sauce when I have the time
I'm from southeast Asia region, and I used to use Preggo brand. I will try if I can find Mutti. Thanks Vincenzo! (Like Chef James said and you mentioned in this video as well, Italy take sauce in serious manner)
Hello Vincenzo a big fan of your channel from India. The Fenugreek seed is actually a major spice used in Indian cuisine with very subtle aroma and dried Fenugreek leaves are also adds great flavour in the curry but don't know why Dolmio puts it in their pasta sauce. It is actually great if you're making Indian curry and put the dried Fenugreek leaves at the end but every cuisine has their own authentic ingredients, you can't just put garam masala in the Ragù.
Thankyou Vincenzo , looking forward to more videos, found your channel today watching Eva and Harper on Pasta Grammar really appreciate this information wonderful. Could you recommend some places here in Australia to find some good kitchen hardware, Italian food products please. So glad I found your channel.
Fenugreek is used for fermentation. It is used in south Indian cuisine for making dosa
Vincenzo, here where I live the only sauce you show that I’m able to get here is Barilla. So I’d have to order online. I just do my best to avoid a high sugar sauce. That means avoiding Prego and Ragu. I buy Barilla, Classico, Newmans Own is good. Raos is here but very expensive.
Barilla is a good brand too. I sometimes use them whenever I’m craving for a quick pasta dish and that’s what’s available in the pantry. If you could find Mutti, that’s a great option too.
I hadn’t seen this before but the guy is right on the money as it were. Good to see someone explaining why you should pay a bit more not for the marketing but quality ingredients.
After watching your video about the tomato sauce, I don't use bottled pasta sauce anymore. Thanks for that Vicenzo! Cheers from France
Great, informative, video! I don't recognize some of the other brands you showed but this justifies why Mutti is a bit more expensive than some of the other commercial brands on the shelf in my area. I personally don't buy ready-made sauce because I make my own but I buy Mutti passata. We have a lot of artisinal products here in Montreal but they're more expensive and at that point it's just better to make your own sauce, and cheaper.
Here in the States the pre-made jars of sauces are so expensive (apart from the truly inedible ones) that it really is a no brainer. A can of San Marzano tomatoes, (uncrushed plum), partially blended and then cooked down a bit with the soffrito and basil. So simple, yet so delicious. Works great as a pizza sauce too.
Here in the US, there is an obsessive and unhealthy practice to add excessive quantities of sugar to processed food by the food industry. The tomatoes sauces sold in the stores is the perfect example. At least RAO’s is a decent brand here.
I've recently seen Mutti Chopped / Cherry / Crushed tomato cans being stocked at my local supermarket.
The pasta sauces we get here in Sweden are disgustingly sweet and ketchup-y imo. So spending 45 minutes with a can of the Mutti and fresh basil has made me appreciate pasta dishes much more.
Tomato sauce doesn't have to take all day. If I'm in a hurry, I squash up a can of whole tomatoes, pour it over a little warmed extra virgin olive oil and season with basil, salt and maybe a pinch of crushed pepper. Sometimes, I start with some onion, but usually it's a quick summer dish that doesn't heat up the kitchen so I keep it simple.
Vincenzo, fructose is a monosaccharide sugar (a simple sugar). Next, fenugreek is used a lot in Indian cooking. My thought on that, why?!? It has a distinct flavor, but doesn't belong in Italian pasta sauce. NOPE! Last thought, what do you have behind you on the stove top? That looks yummy! Great video!
Mutti definitely is usable. Have to say that I use some other also but can't remember the name. It's also on the runny side but I like to reduce it and add a little garlic, basil and some other ingredients sometimes.
I use to use only cherry tomatos, then I look for a good quality jar tomato sauce, I seen Mutti said solo pomodoro and had an intense Italian feeling now have never looked back :) i can drink it its so yummy :)
Not sure if you can get it in Australia, but if you can, Rao's is an absolute go to and is one of the highest rated jarred sauces in the US, and rightfully so. I am a huge fan of Mutti as well, but like a proper home cook, i much prefer to make my own
Rao's, the holy grail of jarred sauces? 🍝 Must be good if it's got your seal of approval! But homemade's still the gold standard, right? 💪🏼🏆
Intetesting. Where I live, Dolmio looks not like this, but is also among the better ones. Since I began to cook based on your videos, when I need a sauce, I get food quality passata and just put basil, etc from my garden in that. Better (and cheaper) than anything so far.
I found Michael Angelo and Lucini pasta sauces and wedges of Romano cheese in an online grocery app! I'm not sure if you recognize the names of those pasta sauces but they have very few ingredients and no sugar or dry spices. When it's time for me to order groceries I plan to get both of those pasta sauces and the cheese I can grate my own 😃
Vincenzo, I really enjoy your reviews and recipes. To point something out, Fenugreek is an herb used in Indian cuisine. It is not a thickener but certainly does not belong in tomato sauce.
where is Rustichella d'Abruzzo? They have really great sauces!
I work in a food warehouse for a big retailer in the UK and I have to say when we make the pallets with the orders sent by the store, there is not much demand for dolmio actually funny enough the store brand is in more demand and of course barilla pasta and sauce it's in high demand.
Vincenzo, thanks for the reviews. Very helpful. I have a question. I am Sicilian and most of my relatives use sugar in the sauce to counteract tomato acid (I guess). Is that a habit caused by not having the sweeter Marzano tomatoes available for many years? Of course, I usually make my own sauces but have to confess to you that I sometimes use sugar. I'll try my next sauce without. Just wanted your general opinion on the subject.
Im new to cooking italian food. Could you please tell me the difference between pasta sauce and pesto? Does the pesto add more flavour? Ive found red and green pesto. Thank you 😊
From the American midwest here and have tried Raos sauce. It is ok but I would recommend trying Victoria marinara pasta sauce if you can find it. It is available at Walmarts here and it is quite natural and pretty decent. I almost always make my own sauce but I would buy Victoria if I needed it quick.
Hi Vicenzo, hope you're well mate. Thank you for this. I think it's important to know which sauces are good/no good and it also further emphasis the importance for all of us to try and make our own tomato sauce. One thing I wanted to ask you: would you ever consider going into the Italian sauce industry and selling your own tomato sauce at shops/supermarkets? I think you'd do really well because you use fresh ingredients and you keep things simple and it's tasty too. Something for you to perhaps consider. 😊👍
Please try Rao’s sauce! (Pronounced Ray-O) It’s natural, great flavor, good ingredients! It’s like the sauce my mother and nonna made!
Yes, incredibly surprised he didnt include Rao's. No junk ingredients in it.
Im sticking with roasting cherry vine tomatoes down slowly, so they release their juices..best sauce ever, add garlic and herbs..or whatever you want
Mutti is the top! they have also canned peeled Tomato's and the one I use is a game changer, called: Pomodoro San Marzano Del'Agro Sarnese-Nocerino D.O.P. . These are peeled San Marzano tomato's and the taste is heaven! for the rest I cook it to pulp adding garlic and basil. If you taste it once, you don't use anything else!